


wasted honor.

by gaynaerys (officialgeorgeglass), officialgeorgeglass



Series: the courage of our convictions [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:39:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialgeorgeglass/pseuds/gaynaerys, https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialgeorgeglass/pseuds/officialgeorgeglass
Summary: she hides in her childhood home, surrounded by frosting flowers and handmaidens who have also seen too much. she forsakes politics, forsakes power, forsakes playing the game. she has been a queen to three kings. all three are now in their grave. but even the sweetness of highgarden cannot wash away the terrors of war, nor can the wine she washes her days with.
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Series: the courage of our convictions [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885828
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

flames lick at the sky behind the tyrell army like it is the mouth of a desperate lover. the ground beneath her horse grows icier the further they ride from the burning city. a sickening marriage of red and green paints the backdrop.

margaery tyrell wonders which queen had lit the match that killed the thousands of innocents within the walls: was it the dragon or the mad lion? she thinks of the orphanages, of flea bottom, of her young king tommen. sickness rises within her then escapes, expelled to the side. the bile seems to float in the air for a moment.

she decides she would rather not know. it was cersei who ordered the wildfire brought up, spread throughout the city. it was cersei who slayed the city. it was cersei who had murdered her own child.

it had not taken much to convince her father to flee. he had heard of the queen’s insanity. he knew it was more dangerous to remain.

king’s landing becomes a distant memory mere moons after she escapes it. it is all ashes, now, anyhow. and there are greater evils to fear, she learns. dragons, krakens, and dead men who walked and killed but did little else.

she hides in her childhood home, surrounded by frosting flowers and handmaidens who have also seen too much. she forsakes politics, forsakes power, forsakes playing the game. she has been a queen to three kings. all three are now in their grave. but even the sweetness of highgarden cannot wash away the terrors of war, nor can the wine she washes her days with.

loras survives his wounds and returns from dragonstone. she cannot even find strength to greet him in the great hall or the gardens. her own wounds may not have come from swords or arrows, but they weigh on her still. guilt for those she abandoned. the ghosts of the city.

“you look terrible, darling sister.” margaery cannot find the strength to laugh. she stares at him, ragged and bruised, three fresh scars peeking from the short sleeves of his shirt and another lacing from one side of his collar to the other. he steps forward with a limp, smiling still. how? she wonders. how can he be happy at the end of the world? she raises her eyebrows.

“you have seen better days yourself, loras.”

then he is rushing towards her, sweeping her up in arms that are still strong enough to carry her, even after the scars and the months of rest it has taken for him to heal. the flagon of wine upon her table clatters to the ground. red spreads across the ground like the blood from tommen’s broken body.

“i missed you every day.” he whispers into her hair.

“i have never stopped missing you.” she says back, the truth like broken glass in her mouth. “not even now.”

as if to spite her great effort to remain ignorant of the world, her brother’s return ignites something in margaery. if she can have him back, then perhaps she can still have the life she once wanted. perhaps she can have others back, too. 

daenerys stormborn has claim to the ruined city of king’s landing, and all the rest of westeros. she passed by dragonstone after the sack of the capital. only stannis baratheon bothered to stand against her, even when his bannermen abandoned him. he died a stubborn man. loras tells her tales of bandit camps, of strange visitors from essos, and rumors of faceless men wearing the face of the long dead lyanna stark stalking the night.

“i asked for news, not ghost tales.” she interrupts, anxious to hear anything - anything at all - about the wolves she knows. living or dead. something to put her guilt to rest.

“the men who saw it swear it is true. they say she left the twins after cutting the throat of every frey there. and the freys _are_ all dead.”

“men will make up any tale to fill the holes in a story they cannot explain.”

“have a little imagination, marg.”

“my taste for whimsy and fantasy turned to ash when king’s landing did.”

loras goes silent. margaery looks around them and tries to enjoy the gardens. it is the first time she has set foot outside in weeks. her handmaidens were not very good at hiding their shock when she asked for a table to be arranged for her and her brother.

“they say that in the eyrie…” his voice drifts downwards, to almost a whisper, “they say that littlefinger was there, with a daughter that is not his own.”

“another baratheon bastard?” she rolls her eyes, “won’t do him much good, now. daenerys targaryen will not fall to some whelp of king robert’s.”

“not a baratheon.” he retorts, the words short. margaery stares at him.

“nobody cares about some false heir of his. what are you getting at?”

“few people are left who remember petyr baelish in king’s landing. do you?”

“only that he was a lecherous traitor.”

“and who disappeared when he did, just as you were married - and joffrey died?”

margaery sits in stunned silence, the small chunk of bread in her hand dropping silently to the ground. could it be true? could she be trapped up there, in the sky, with littlefinger as her personal gaoler? 

“do not play games with me, loras.” her voice is dead, dull as unpolished armor. hope is too dangerous, too painful a thing to be played with. the fire will burn it all away and reveal the truth.

“i would never. you are my sister. i take no joy in causing you pain.”

was the thing growing in her stomach now not pain? was the distance, the helplessness, the emptiness at knowing what fate she had sealed for sansa stark not agony? margaery shakes her head.

“i have sworn not to play these games again, loras. do not drag me back in for a rumour.”

“i could not forgive myself if i kept it to myself. what if she turned up dead, thrown from that godsforsaken moon door by him? or by that arryn child, or her aunt? what if the next news that came was her, married to some northern lord, ousted from her birthright by some meddling karstark or another bolton bastard? could i live with that? could _you?_ ”

margaery knows the answer. it sits like lead around her heart, taunting her, knowing that she will enjoy playing again. as if the game will not kill many more, as if it is not the worst part of her.

“no.”


	2. deux

it is all too easy to rouse her old eyes and ears. the young ladies who had always doted on her, had always loved her, had always done her bidding are delighted to be of use again. they smile their conspirators smiles and gleam as if they’ve been let in on a secret, a plot. they treat her like she has power. like she is scheming to being a queen again.

they take pleasure in the sport of it. she imagines them as hunters, spears and bows bloodied in hand, shrieking gleefully over a dead doe, dead rabbits, dead birds as their forest burns around them.

she is glad for the terrible destruction of their world. she no longer has to twist her way through it, bleeding all that get in her way. she has hunted everyone she ever loved. she has stabbed them all, and let them all bleed out for their spoils.

_ has she ever loved anyone? _ the question haunts her featherbed. can you love someone when you are using them? she thinks of loras, of how she tugged him along behind her towards renly. she thinks of sansa, and how she paraded her just out of joffrey’s reach. she thinks of tommen, who she never pretended to love, but used nonetheless to keep cersei at bay. is she capable of love? margaery tyrell is selfish. she has always been selfish.

even now, she seeks out a girl not to help her, but to ease her own turmoil. she wants sansa because she has always wanted sansa. there is nothing else to it.

_at least_ , she thinks up at the moonlight that slithers through her window, _it is not for power this time_.

merry crane leaves for the eyrie the next morning, and margaery is so frayed with nerves that she cannot hold a meal down for the following two days. the world is wilting around her. she watches as flowers begin to die, to brown and fade. the fruit-picking grinds to a halt. it almost feels as though the wheel of time itself has stopped its torturous spin.

almost.

“news will come,” loras reminds her day after day. “it is a long journey from here to the vale.”

words do little to calm her twisting hands. her fingers still tap at tabletops and knot themselves in skirthems. margaery thinks of the days she dreamed of a life there, married to a king without much consequence, somehow returned to her lands of summer and childhood, sansa alongside her. they might have lounged their days away, dined on figs and cheese and honey licked from one another’s fingers. their bellies might have been full, their families whole, their worries of nought but gossip and fashion and sunset. she would have stolen sansa’s life from her to have her to herself. how foolish she had been. how young, how full of hope and dreams and that  _ thing _ that made her lungs swell and her jaw ache from grinning.

she longs to be a child again, longs for olenna to instruct her on her next moves, longs for tiny smiles and fingers brushing at her braids, a shy and broken little voice whispering how much it loved the way she did her hair.

margaery tyrell is a fire. she is the burning ache of yearning. she is terrible, oily guilt. her limbs are slick with it, her throat itches from the smoke. there is no reprieve.

the raven arrives as sunlight disappears on the same day mace falls ill. she leaves her father’s sickbed far too quickly.

_ you waited too long. the red wolf is already home. disturbing whispers are to be found in oldtown. meet me there. i will be waiting in the quill and tankard. _

“you need to stay. for father.” she says in a dull voice as loras tosses the parchment into the hearth in his chambers. he lets out one harsh, cruel bark of laughter.

“mace would rather i didn’t. he has willas. i belong alongside you, marg.” her heart swells. “no matter where that takes us. and it would hardly be safe for you to set out on such a journey alone. grandmother, gods rest her soul, would have had my head for letting you.”

“loras,” she says his name quietly, painfully. it is too soon to leave safety. she is not done healing and nor is he. they know not what they are leaving for. their destination, the final one, is a mystery.

margaery is leaving to mend a thing she broke long ago. its pieces are missing. she has no way to find them, or to make them cling together once again. loras is leaving because he no longer has a place to call his own. perhaps he never will. perhaps margaery will never heal.

perhaps she will never be able to fix anything she broke. she has never tried before.

if only she believed in the gods. at least then she might have someone to blame, or someone to beg for help. but margaery accepted long ago that she is alone in this world.

“you are the greatest man i know.”

he smiles, and reaches over to squeeze her hand, balled on the tabletop.

“i suppose i am lucky that you do not know many men.”

“i’ve known enough of them to know you are the only good one left.” she retorts, an old sly ghost of a smirk finding its way onto her lips. “besides, joffrey hardly made for tough competition.”

“you flatter me, sweet sister.” he is standing then, sauntering towards the door in a way that reminds margaery of the way she once carried herself. “pack your things. i will arrange for horses and supplies. and get some rest - we will leave before dawn, and i do not wish to have to hold you upright as we ride.”

she does as she is bid, carefully packing the warmest of her clothing into a trunk and extinguishing all the candles in her chambers. anxiousness seeps into the darkness even as she does her best to avoid it. she thinks she can smell iron and ice in the air with her eyes closed. a shudder runs through her, and she convinces herself it is from a chill, frozen breeze.  _ winter is coming _ , a voice whispers in her dreams. aye, it is, she agrees. 

never before had those words been ones of torment. never before had they carried such sweet promise, nor such bitter threat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE ALL FUCKING HATE EXPOSITION!!!! WE HATE IT


	3. Chapter 3

the sky is barely turning red with morning when they pass through the outer gates of highgarden. the sound of hooves on frosting ground echoes all too loud throughout the land. never before has she seen it this empty. not since aegon’s conquest has it been this desolate. margaery does not dwell on the sadness, the mud that looks bloody either because of her imagination or because it truly is streaked with the lives of men, women, and children. she does not look too closely at the burned stumped of trees nor the fraying ropes coiled around them. the fires are long burned out but she can imagine smoke that must have filled the air not too long ago. not the results of dragonfire, as they had first feared. not even the product of cersei’s wildfyre, which had roared and raged in the capital. no - the flames had been funeral pyres, or desperate attempts to cook the last food of troops and refugees, or the last-ditch attempts to stay warm.

margaery shivers beneath her furs and digs her heels into the sides of her mare. the sooner they reach oldtown, the sooner she can let her thoughts wander northwards, the better. however selfish, however self-destructive that might be. the weight of the tyrell name no longer lies draped across her shoulders. a crown no longer lies atop her brow. there is no longer even the thought of one. she wants for very little, now. her dreams are now haunted only by flashes of flames that flutter like hair in the wind and the smells of summer citrus.

“think we’ll run into any dornish?”

it’s the first thing either of them have said in two hours worth of riding. the sound of a human voice almost frightens margaery. she sits up straighter, like a jolt has run through her.

“that’s what you’re here for, is it not?” she asks, hoping to lighten the fear that his question has brought. it does not work. “no. all the letters say they haven’t set forth any further than the prince’s pass since cersei destroyed the capital. most likely they’re solidifying whatever claim they might have with the little one - myrcella - before they make a move. or they are waiting until the dragons are killed. snakes are smarter than showing themselves when something might just as easily kill them.” olenna would have advised the same of highgarden. hide, play weak, make a marriage at the end of it. margaery is sick of her grandmother’s advice, she decides as the mare makes a sound of exhausted dissatisfaction.

loras looks back at her. “shall we stop for rest?”

“no.” he looks shocked at the sudden conviction in her voice, the stern sort of steel she takes on. “not until the sun is at its peak. we need all the riding hours we can get.”

it goes on like so for four days: riding long hours, the horses growing wearier and slower every day, the night bitter and cold even with the two of them close and a fire raging on and on. They pass villages abandoned, towns with only the barest hints of life. oldtown rises in the distance on their third night - the lighthouse still blinking its light across the world even as the world seems to margaery to be drawing to a close. the vanity, the bravery, the determination of scholars and maesters, she supposes. do they still deny that the dragons live?

margaery wants to forgo sleep and ride on until they reach the city the moment they see it. loras reminds her that they are still too far - the horses would collapse before they made it. margaery knows she looks haggard enough without riding any longer. her legs ache, their insides burning with rash and blisters from riding. she would likely fall off if they were to ride on. around their fire that night, loras allows her to shear off the long, greasy curls of his hair. she uses his sword. It would do them well to avoid recognition - her rose pin is tucked into her saddlebags, his clothing dull and brown. he looks older with shorn hair. older than she does. he has always seemed the younger of them, even by years when in truth it was only a few minutes later that he was born. now, however, she looks the grubby younger sister of a farmer or soldier. she does not like the feeling their reflections in the still surface of the honeywine give her.

she barely sleeps, shivering before the low coals of their fire. she throws sticks and logs into the hungry orange of it and watches in a mixture of awe and despondency as they burn down to ashes or are cleaved neatly in two by the heat of flames rising and falling. she wonders what will happen to her, now that she is done chasing crowns, now that olenna can no longer use her. will she fan a flame and wilt away slowly, consumed by the very thing she feeds, or will she split in half and make it roar ever higher and stronger. she knows not which one is worse. she knows not which one is better. neither feels particularly hopeful.

they reach the gates near dusk the next day. margaery has lost count of the days they’ve been riding: all the knows is the pain of it, the chafing of her thighs and the complaints of her mare. but she will not show it - does not walk uncomfortably as loras lies their way past the guards, claims they ran out of food in their village and departed for greener shores. perhaps used to these stories, perhaps merely exhausted and desperate to do something good for a girl who looks like she’s starving and her worried brother, they are allowed to pass. margaery does not look up. she is too close to lannister to be safe anywhere, these days. mere moons ago, she was too close to olenna to be safe. her curse and her blessing, she supposes, is that none shall ever care enough to define her as herself.

they find the inn easily enough, and the hot meal they find comes as a blessing. it is not good, not by any means - but oldtown and its maesters seem to have far more meat and ale to spare than any of the great houses that remain. it is not as surprising as it should be. margaery barely tastes her ale - something she usually despises - for her eyes are glued to the door, waiting. she finishes eating, her plate is taken away. her drink is refilled once, twice. she begins to despair - guiltily, for she cannot bring herself to fear for merry’s life. all this way for nothing. all her hope, for nothing - for a girl who is dead or who is safe, happy, fine in the north, the memory of margaery tyrell nothing but a ghost tale in her mind.

there’s a blast of cold air. margaery’s eyes widen - a woman, short, hidden beneath a hood, sneaks her way to their table. merry crane. margaery is too stunned to speak, loras too withdrawn. it hardly matters, however, because as soon as she is seated, merry brings forth some thing from beneath her cloak.

she spreads it across the table - a drawing, faded in colour, the paper practically melting under her touch.

“they say there is a ghost about, hunting down targaryens. revenge, they say, for the way they wronged her, killed her, stole her son.”

margaery stares at the picture. she stares, and the longer she looks, the more confused she grows. the name at the bottom is barely legible.

“lyanna stark is dead.” she is almost angry with how useless it seems.

“that is why they call her a ghost.”

“a ghost cannot hunt.”

“i know.”

she looks up, over at merry, at the way the young woman seems to be grinning with her eyes.

“if you do not explain, i will lose my temper, merry.”

but it is loras who speaks. “do you remember what was always said of the younger stark girl? arya?” he looks to margaery. she shakes her head - she had only ever cared much about sansa. “she looked less her mother than she did her aunt. her temper, too, was more of lyanna’s. she looked like the bastard jon snow, and the two took to one another as siblings, true siblings.” margaery’s head turns back to the painting. “she had the stark look, to be sure, but it was not ned stark’s. it was lyanna’s.”

a ghost.

“arya stark has not been seen in years. she likely died in the streets of king’s landing, long ago.” she does not want to think it may be true. “even if… what would she want with the targaryens? they did nothing to her.”

“that i do not know, my lady. i only know the rumours i have heard.”

loras turns to her, head low, voice even lower.

“marg, if this is real…”

“i know. we must find her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year gays


	4. Chapter 4

merry tells them worse news on the way back to highgarden. cersei survived the burning. in dreams she comes for margaery, only to walk right through her. behind her is always sansa. loras lies lifeless by her feet. she watches, frozen, as cersei chokes the life out of the eldest remaining stark. then she watches herself grab the chain about cersei’s neck and twist. cersei crumples as she wakes, drenched in icy sweat.

over and over again. the fire is always burning down to coals when she shouts herself back to life. the road feels longer with the three of them. its end feels less like home with every night terror she faces.

arya stark is bound to pass through highgarden soon enough. it is one of few cities left with the sort of supplies she will need for a journey to king’s landing (to kill the mad queen), or to dragonstone (to kill the dragon queen). the towns she might have stopped at are populated now only by ghosts, corpses, and carrion birds. the roads she might have followed are burned, broken, blocked.

the gates open for the tyrells. margaery is not so sure they will for a ghost girl. she will find some other way through, margaery thinks, and loras echoes the thought only moments later.

“then we must have all our best eyes watching.” merry interrupts, offering a nod to margaery, along with the barest hint of a smile. encouragement. understanding. it is not what she wants. it is not something she is ready to receive. but she takes it anyhow, with something akin to a grimace as she ushers loras onwards, towards the castle, towards a hearth and a featherbed. he gives her a look as if to beg her to come with him, to give up on her mad quest, to rest, to eke out a life without a single stark in it.

she will not. she cannot.

  
  


margaery is given a scratchy, uncomfortable blanket and steaming hot tea once the guards realise she has no intention of leaving. one shows her to the top of the ramparts, then retreats back to where he stood. merry makes to follow, but margaery shakes her head. “you have earned a hot meal and a warm bed. go now. the sun is soon to set wake the others in the morning, and give them orders to watch and listen. i doubt she will appear overnight.”

only three parties arrive at the gates over the next two days. margaery watches them all. first, a lone old man, pulling behind him a cart with a small box of possessions and a crate with three chickens at dawn the next day. that evening, a pair of farmer women not much older than margaery herself arrive. one carries a crying bundle in her arms. they both look as though they are starving. she is glad they have arrived somewhere safe, even if another pair of mouths to feed is the last thing the tyrells need. a hunting party arrives at midday on her second day of watch. they had left a few hours before she, loras, and merry returned. they carry a small boar and an ancient looking stag with them. food. much needed meat. she wishes it were more.

margaery fades in and out of sleep: blessedly dreamless, in patches. the nightmare recurs once, twice, three times, over and over until she loses count. she has a deliciously delirious daydream of citrus and laughter and flowers just once. she hears herself laughing. she hears a sweet voice singing, and a lyre. it feels as though it occurs up in the stars, as though it is gods living that life. she knows, however, it is only her, stealing a fantasy. if it had just been sansa’s sweet singing, she might have thought it was the gods.

on her fourth day of watching, she spots a dark figure scaling a crumbling part of the wall. in spite of her exhaustion, in spite of her numb feet and fingers, she startles upright. even from this distance, she knows the climber is small, agile, speedy. she doesn’t hesitate to start following. she has chosen her destiny, now, and she could swear that the wind whispered to her  _ follow, follow, follow _ .

she keeps a distance, watching with gaunt eyes as the girl comes into focus. margaery tiptoes across the ramparts, watching the girl - arya, she tells herself, arya stark - leap atop them, then just as quickly begin skimming her way back down the walls. she tails her, just out of sight, always atop the walls, until she disappears inside the first tavern there is. then margaery returns to the gates and descends. she sends out a prayer to whatever gods might listen - not that she believes in them, not that she ever did - that arya stark took a room for the night.

she finds merry, has her send a lad to stay at the tavern. she cannot be seen them - she and merry both, they are too recognisable. they would be given special treatment. whoever arya stark is now, whatever she is now, she would surely have seen and studied paintings of the highborn of westeros. it would be foolish to reappear like this without knowing. if all she wanted was to go home, she would have landed her ship in the north. the wind hums in agreement. there are larger forces at play.

her bed feels wrong after so many nights on hard ground and lumpy tavern cots. the healing chafe-marks on her thighs itch, and beneath her is far too soft. she is restless, the image of a tiny figure climbing up and down walls far too easily for a noble lady, for anyone, man or woman, dances about in her imagination. were she not so bone-tired, she might have risen herself and drifted about highgarden until she fell into unconsciousness. instead she succumbs to the great blanket of dark, and sleeps.

  
  


margaery wakes to sunlight and the smell of bread. it feels worlds away, as though summertime, but the chill in the air and the lack of birdsong betray the fantasy. loras is in her chambers, his back to her, the sound of his chewing loud enough to make her pull a face.

“i hope you brought enough for two.” she ignores the sleepiness, the weary frustration in her own voice. there has not been a true meal in many weeks - not like she was used to as a child, then a teen, then a queen. but food was even scarcer on their journey, then atop the wall. her stomach aches yet also dances anxiously at the thought of food and of arya stark. she stands and finds her way over to him. her feet protest, sore and blistered from the weeks past. loras tears a chunk of bread, fills it with a sliver of cheese, and hands it over.

her quest could wait. it would do her no good to starve in the meantime.

“garland and uncle mace are mightily displeased with you, sister.” he smirks around his own breakfast, and throws her a wink. “i didn’t bother trying to take any of the blame. they wouldn’t have offered it.”

her eyes roll. “i’d hoped they’d put more energy into thinking about war and their people than about my adventures.”

loras barks with laughter. “oh, marg, they have plenty gusto for both.”

she knows. “i know.” she falls into silence as she eats. “what i would give for eggs. or peaches. or berries - or, hell, for some  _ bacon _ .” she is trying not to think of it, of arya and therefore of  _ sansa _ . it is difficult. her light words do little to mask her true anguish. loras does not bother to enlighten her. he just watches as she eats.

“i trust you slept well?”

“like a newborn babe, brother. like a rock on a beach.” she replies, irritation seeping into her voice. it only makes him grin.

“gods, you sound like me at fourteen.” margaery gives him a foul look and even fouler words. his grin grows. “you need to eat properly. if i tell you now, you won’t.” more bread, more cheese. she chews without tasting, and washes it down with a goblet of water. wine would be nice, but she knows better than to ask.

she eats what she is handed and drinks what she is told, feeling rather like it is olenna sitting before her, not her twin brother. they sit in silence, hers anxious, his gloating, until she cannot eat anymore.

then he stands and leaves. “get dressed. i don’t think the ghost girl will stay much longer.”

he is right, of course, and margaery dresses again in the plainest dress she can find. she has her handmaidens pack another few days of clothing and supplies. the restless energy within her screams that this will not be her home much longer.

her heart tells her, again and again, that it already is not. that it has not been for a long time. there’s a loud crackling from her hearth at the thought. a log has split in two. the flames look as though they are grinning at her, even larger and more smugly than loras had.

  
  


at the tavern she wears a hood. even loras goes unrecognised, his hair cut short all of a sudden, his chin unshaven. merry and her spy wait for them at a table. they order ale and do not touch the flagons, much as margaery wants to. the spy - a boy, no older than sixteen by her guess - tells them  _ she _ took the third room. he has no clue who she is. margaery hopes it will stay that way. she hopes his loyalty is to merry and herself, not to the tyrells. not to garland, or her uncle. she does not feel like explaining her life to them. not now.

they sit, and wait, and watch.

and when a person emerges from the third room, loras pales. margaery herself feels a cold wave of shock as their body seems to grow, and morph, just slightly in the shadows. what emerges is not a vengeful arya stark, heart set on killing cersei lannister for the death of her brother, father, and sister.

what emerges is an aging man, bald and bearded. the hair of his chin is white. he walks with a cane, and drops some coin on the bar as he  _ clacks _ his way to the door.

arya stark arrived from braavos.

arya stark is not arya stark. she is no one, and she is everyone. the wind whispers  _ hurry _ as the bearded man opens the door and leaves. margaery’s quest, impossible before, now feels a thousand leagues longer, a thousand times more difficult.

arya stark is a faceless man. an expensive, deadly assassin. and she is leaving highgarden without leaving a clue of who her target might be.

margaery stands and rushes for the door.


End file.
